Belkin n52te Tournament Edition SpeedPad by Belkin Components
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Digital camera reviews of Belkin n52te Tournament Edition SpeedPad
Digital camera Review: Caveat emptor; "Evil Twin" is a dud.
Summary: 2 Stars
The n52te favored form over function, appearance over flavor, and design over usability. It is the "evil twin" of its more venerable sibling; the "bad sister" who entrances you with lights and a polished exterior, but who is by comparison only a shadow of her older sis beyond "skin deep."
Out of the box, this item does not "light up" as pictured; you must find a switch on the bottom of the unit - which you might expect "ON" by default, considering the product's marketing - before the lights begin. You might hope that fireworks would ensue, but prepare yourself instead only for frustration and disappointment.
After installing the software, you are presented with a clumsy configuration interface, which like the product favors flash over utility. Assignment of single keys is nonetheless straightforward; in this the UI does as well as its predecessor.
This is where the romance ends.
The task of assigning macros is an absolute, unequivocal, hair-tearing and scream-inducing nightmare.
1) You cannot adjust recorded delays; you must delete them all (which seems the ONLY function of the "select all delays" button), and reinsert each one separately.
2) Inserting keypresses/commands not originally recorded requires recording an additional action, whose sections (e.g. keypress, delay, key release, delay) appear at the bottom of the list and must be moved SEPARATELY (!) up the list.
If that doesn't sound enchanting enough, consider that you cannot select multiple actions and insert delays en masse; rather, you must:
1) select the action under which you wish to insert a delay by clicking it
2) select the desired delay, which is ONLY offered in 50, 100, 150, and 200 ms
3) click "Insert Delay"
4) de-select the action you just selected by clicking on it
5) repeat steps 1-4 FOR EVERY DELAY IN THE MACRO.
After spending half an hour experiencing this lesson in patience and terrible UI design, you think you're out of the woods.
Wrong.
You start the game, and the controller switches only sporadically between keysets, though you've ensured it's configured properly.
A trip to the n52te dot com forums ends with a search that uncovers nothing but complaints (outside of evangelistic excuses by admins who, despite having been registered for an entire year, have perhaps three dozen posts) and a registration form that never sends a confirmation e-mail.
Buying this piece of #@$!: $60-$70.
Trying to get it to work: 6 hours.
Smashing it against a brick wall: Priceless.
Digital camera Review: Click, click, BOOM!
Summary: 4 Stars
I love this device! The last piece I needed to complete my laptop armchair simpit (see my profile for a picture). Was originally put off by all the poor reviews but I'm using it for FPS and the ability to map the WASD to the thumb d-pad (including diagonals) has vastly improved my gaming experience, freeing up my fingers for other functions. The d-pad allowed me to use the keypad to map other functions to, what I feel, is a more intuitive position. The macro function works fine and the many options in the excellent software make this an easy product to customise. Now I use the same key for similar functions across multiple games. The learning curve was a bit steep (retraining 15 years of muscle memory) but after a month I would never go back to the laptop keyboard. I withheld one star because the paint is wearing off one key already, purely a cosmetic fault, but still am I really hitting the key that often?Digital camera Review: Coming up short
Summary: 2 Stars
This is not the pad you are looking for. Before I even installed it, I had to buy an extension for the USB, since the one supplied was about six feet long. And guess who makes an extension for about $20? Yeah, Belkin. After my install of hardware and software I could not get it to work. After several calls to ...? India ? and talk with two different 'techs' neither of whom were easy to understand and neither of whom understood me.....they would call me back they said, within 24 hours...which they did not. And from what I could understand, they were teching from a check list and had no idea what they were doing. Shall I go on? A ...no, I shan't.
I bought a Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboardand hope the install goes better. If it doesn't work out, read my review on subject. BTW, It has a 10 foot line.
I might also add...The keys on the G13 are better positioned and those closer to your palm require less curling of the fingers to attack.... and you get 22 instead of 14 ...in this case more is better.
Digital camera Review: Do not expect support from Belkin if you are NOT a windows user.
Summary: 1 Stars
Just bought a Speedpad n52te, and was surprised to get a "kext not supported" error from the driver install on my Mac Pro and Macbook Pro. Belkin USED to be good for support for MacOS, they are no longer. the drivers for the N52 and the N52te do not support an OS newer than 10.5.x. you MIGHT get lucky and get it to install on 10.6.1 or .2 but if you are running 64 bit, forget it, their kext does not work under 64 bit MacOS 10.6.(anything current). When you contact support, they will tell you that they do not -officially- support the speedpads on anything newer than 10.4 if you look around belkin and manage to find the driver download, it lists 10.2-10.4 as the supported versions of MacOSX.
to use this device under 10.6.7 or 10.6.x 64 bit, you have to buy 3rd party controller/keyboard/mouse mapping software that from what I've seen just supports remapping the keys, no macro capability that I have come across. of course this is not a Belkin driver.
with their latest lack of support I will think 6 or 7 long times before buying a belkin product, then will probably go and buy a competitors product, even if it seems less capable.
Digital camera Review: Does not work with MAC OS X 10.5.8
Summary: 1 Stars
I am certain that this product is all that its cracked up to be if I could use it. However, MAC users are put on hold once again with a product that says it works with MAC but in fact does not. This product says it will work with MAC OS 10.2.8 or above. In a nutshell, it does not. So until belkin spends the time to update this driver I have a 100$ paper weight (Yeah, I went for the overnight shipping. FML).
I will let you know when Belkin fixes this, if ever.